Oven Roasted Kale

KALE AND CALCIUM 1

I have never made anything with kale much less given any thought to this frilly cousin of cabbage. Sangeeth Raghunathan's e-mail informing us of her Eat Healthy: Calcium contest led to research on the Internet on calcium rich foods and turned up the fact that kale is a rich source of calcium. Here's my first entry.

This is also my entry for SnackoRama's Sunday Snacks Event.
Don't have kale in your area? No worries. Use baby spinach leaves. I have used the whole small leaves for this picture but you can chop up the whole bunch of kale and use it. This is a delicious and nutritious snack/appetizer/starter.

This is also my entry for Easycraft of Simple Indian Food's, 'WYF: Salads/Starters/Soups event'.

A new ingredient is a challenge and fires up my slow engine. so I decided to get to know kale better. According to the USDA database 3.53 ozs of kale (100 gms by weight) has 135 mg of calcium which is high, as 3.53 ozs is 1/2 cup packed kale by volume.

Further research turned up lots of recipes with kale (who knew so many people cooked with kale...one learns something new everyday). I finally picked one American recipe and came up with two of my own.

I set off for the local grocery store hoping to find kale...the store not only had kale but I got the freshest, hugest bunch and fell in love with the fragrance from it. Can't think what it reminded me of, though.

The frilly, light green leaves, free of yellow edges and no holes are obviously the best kind to get...I picked medium sized and small leaves as the best bunch because reading all those recipes had told me kale can be pretty tough.

Home again I couldn't resist, putting my kale into water (above picture) and going back to the computer to refresh my mind about the recipe I had picked to try.

It is Stepahanie Gallagher's recipe with my adaptations from the site About.com:cooking for kids.

Heat the oven to 350...make sure one rack is on the lowest level.

Take the smallest leaves, wash and dry them.

(I just used six leaves for the experiment).

In a bowl, mix one Tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp apple cider vinegar, salt and chill powder.

(Stephanie's recipe said to sprinkle with coarse salt before serving, but I had none).

Toss the leaves to coat them and placed them on a baking tray.

Bake them for 10 mins.

Take them out, turn them over and bake for another five.

The leaves have to crisp, like chips to the touch.

Remove, cool a few seconds and dig in...it is so.o.o.o good.

Proof of how good it was, came when HD (Hubby Dearest), who approaches new dishes as warily as a mongoose approaches a cobra, said, "What's this?"

"Try it," I coaxed.

He picked one leaf up with that...'I'm in trouble if I do and I'm in trouble if I don't', look he gets, took a bite of it and then said in surprise, "This is good!"

(As if all my experiments end in disaster...some do, not all).

The cherry on my sundae of happiness came a few minutes later...I took a picture, put the camera away and turned...the last three leaves were gone!!! High praise indeed!

This is an excellent appetizer or just a side dish that adds crunch to a meal and as Gallagher who created it said, excellent for kids (without the chilli powder).

She took the leaves apart, tore then into bite size pieces, then tossed them in the mix. I liked my way better, stem and all but I wouldn't do this with the big leaves.

Try it...you'll be amazed at the taste and result.